The Hacks can't take the Flack

It would be remiss of me not to blog about the goings on at News International and the fated News of the World this week.

I, like many, have looked on as the British (tabloid) press have allegedly sunk to (apparent) new lows.

Revelations that NoTW employees hacked into murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's mobile phone, deleting voicemail messages, tampering with police evidence and giving her poor grieving family false hope at an extremely difficult time, have been met with an iron wall of collective British agony, disgust and well deserved anger.

News International's response to this crisis, however, took us all by surprise.

In the corporate equivalent of suicide (or perhaps that should be murder), the life of the News of the World has been cut down. Dead.

Intriguingly, the British public have known for months (years, even) that the NoTW was involved in the illegal practice of phone hacking. But clearly our collective conscience doesn't give a hoot for law breaking when the victims of said crime are celebrities, politicians or members of the Royal family. They are "fair" game, apparently.

So it's not the crime in this instance that has caught the attention of the public, it's the victim. In fact, you could argue that, collectively, we were prepared to forgive NoTW for the crime - in many respects we already had. With 10 million readers, a raft of recent industry awards, and some of the world's biggest advertisers behind it, the NoTW was undoubtedly one of the UK's most successful British newspapers.

But for the irate British public, Murdoch's decision to shut down this 168 year old newspaper is not the ideal outcome - no matter how much initial jubilation it may have caused.

We prefer justice in this country, not corporal punishment. Rupert Murdoch has, in one seemingly well intended action, demonstrated that his unwielding power in this industry is paramount. It won't be the British justice system that brings this corporation to its knees: Rupert Murdoch will make those decisions himself, thank you very much.

The net result: we may never know the full extent or truth of what has gone on behind closed doors at News International. It's very hard to serve justice to a ghost.